I've been a Debian based Linux user for 3 years. I decided to choose a different flavour that had good looks, features and support. Someone suggested Sabayon, i downloaded and tested in a VM under Windows. And it was good.

I installed Sabayon about an hour ago and everything seemed to go alright.Though i seem to have a few problems now.

- I get extremely low FPS with compiz enabled (about 5FPS when rotating cube). I am running driver 190.53 i believe and i have a c216 GTX260.- I have no audio, cannot see why not.. (Realtek HD Audio afaik)- The package manager GUI is absolutely awful. Awkward design, not very clear. I get a notification saying that 180updates are needed and it will require about 2000MB of space? This seems a bit excessive.- Using Sulfur i cannot find some packages i'd like to remove, there is no category option like in Debian's Synaptic manager.

Other than these few snags, Sabayon seems like a half decent OS and am willing to give it a good try.

So have you searched about any of these problems using the search function or using google with sabayon in the search criteria. I did these problems come up within the first 3 google listings when I do it.

As for the package manager, have you tried to do a full blown Gentoo(it's what we are based off of) install. Not only has the man who is called Lxnay basically created this distro out of Gentoo but he also is the guy who is the lead and majority programmer of sulfer(our package manager) he used a pencil a piece construction paper and silly putty for the first iteration, yes it sucks sometimes but it is pretty bad ass. not as mature as synaptic but very good for what it does(other distros have started to use it((nova linux, VLOS)) ). So that being said i think it sucks because you are not used to how it works. give it a chance and also check out our wiki so you can see about 'equo' the CLI version of it.

So good luck the forum is here to ask and answer questions. the wiki is also here. i suggest you use them and read about sabayon. Don't trash our distro until you know our distro.

If you say you used Debian and you don't like the excessive updates, try a minimal install using the Sabayon corecd (last time I checked, Debian didn't have a GUI install). As for the Sulfur GUI, I'm not a very big fan of sulfur myself, so I prefer equo (the command line alternative)... the equivalent of apt on debian. As throdon said, sabayon it's still a young distro, especially the entropy package management (notice the latest entropy is version 0.99.24.5, as of when writing this post), so it's a bit unfair to compare to a mature distro like debian & apt.As for the view by category, in my sulfur I get that by default... I don't remember setting anything like that, but I know that pretty much proves that viewing by category is possible. You are probably used with the categories in debian (the packages are different in debian vs gentoo/sabayon - sabayon uses the same package names as gentoo, which in return was inspired by the bsd port system, afaik).

As a last note, I have a very poor opinion (to say the least) about installing a Linux with GUI in a VM under Windows... it kind of defeats the whole purpose of running a stable environment in window of what I consider to be a pretty unstable one (hope the admins won't be offended by this comment). I have a dual boot system myself (windows xp / sabayon), and the GUI in Linux is definitely a lot faster than Windows'. My point is, installing a Linux in a VM will always be slower than a hdd proper install, especially when there's a second graphic environment involved (the first one being the one Windows itself uses to render the VM window).

I didn't get much of a chance to test Sulfur last night, about 30mins overall.I've installed on a 10GB partition and about 7.5GB is already used and is increasing.

I wanted to remove the largest apps i could, but could not find a way to organise installed packages by "Installed Size".

I'll try Sulfur some more when i get home this afternoon.

Another question, what sort of "package freeze" does Sabayon have? I tend to like to have the latest software installed.I know Ubuntu freezes but newer updates are available through PPA's.Is there a similar thing in Sabayon?

And even inside Entropy, the release are in that way. 'Cause it has the same (or almost) apps but in binary packages only. If you don like the GUI (sulfur), equo should do great, but what are the needs in a GUI? Nice and shiny colors?

So, if you want, you'll hve a SUPER_BLEEDEN_EDGE system... Just change the repository to use limbo ones. Make a world update (watch out, it's not a Debian Upgrade) and feel Happy

BTW: the recommended space for sabayon are 20GB so, don't espect much less than that. But don't worry about the updates, when you reach about 8,5 or 9 GB (Which is the minimum required) the space stabilize it's growing...

There is also Porthole which is a GUI interface to Portage. It may have some of the features you are used to with Debian. It should show up if you search for it in Sulfer. I haven't played with it much, but it looks like you have to log on as root to get the best use out of it.

You say you're coming from a Debian based system which you've used for the past three years; you've tried Sabayon and you're not impressed? Let me guess: Ubuntu user? Figures. I switched to Sabayon six months ago after using Debian (pure Debian mind you) and myriad of its derivatives and variants for the past seven years. While I tried Ubuntu off and on, I preferred Debian Testing/Sid (i.e., Sidux, Mepis, Parsix.) I decided that it was high time I learned another distribution but I wanted something with the power and ease of use of Debian. I also wanted a rolling release. I researched Arch Linux and Gentoo but after weighing the pros and cons of each decided that Sabayon IS the answer. After using it for a few weeks, I was / am damned impressed all around. You complain about entropy / sulfur. Have you really used these package managers? Have you realized the power and flexibility they provide to Sabayon? The Sabayon developers wrote this new package manager from scratch and cleanly integrated it into Gentoo while also leaving Gentoo's native (portage) package management system intact. What an amazing feat! Two powerful package managers: one for beginners and one for experts. You're not impressed by this? Entropy (equo on the command line and Sulfur graphically) almost provides the same power as Debian's Apt; it's fast and easy to use. Pretty damn impressive for a brand new package manager that's bolted onto another distribution's base!!! Some of the problems you're referring to are likely related to KDE itself. Complaining about a large update size is plain silly, especially when you claim to come from Debian. Obviously KDE was updating from 4.3.3 to 4.3.4. I can recall large Debian updates that greatly exceeded 300 MB at a shot. Of course coming from Ubuntu, where packages are frozen in time and not updated until the next release, I can see where having many package updates might be surprising. While pretty shiny parts in a desktop are pleasant to look at, they do not make or break a distribution. Power, flexibility and stability make the distribution and Sabayon fits the bill perfectly! Enjoy Sabayon!!